#RPGaDAY, Last Year: Day 12 – Oldest RPG You Still Read or Play

Day 12! This time last year, everyone is leaving for Gen Con and our topic for #RPGaDAY yesterday was the oldest RPG you still read or play.

“I’m going to bust out Twilight: 2000 and read about Soviet troop movements!” No. I’m not going to do that.

Man, this is proving difficult to answer! I have some older games, but I don’t really play them. And of those older games, I reference some earlier Shadowrun books when I do that other Shadowrun game.

Maybe Pathfinder, but that’s just the Adventure Paths, really, to get an idea of the type of 5e game I’d like to run for the family. Pathfinder doesn’t seem that old, even though when I look back at Curse of the Crimson Throne, it’s only 2008.

I am guessing that prompt is hoping I pick something from the 1980s or something at least a decade old, but I just don’t go back and read RPG books for pleasure – maybe for reference, but even then…

Maybe Mayfair Games’ edition of Chill, but probably not, because (again) that’s reference. But then, that means that going through the Pathfinder Adventure Paths is reference, too.

When I get the itch to run a game, I’ll look back over some older things, like Godlike or Unknown Armies or get the Blue Planet books out again. But I more often think about how to fit a game concept into Fate.

No, I think it’s more of the older ideas for the game that I read. I’ve always wanted to run a game in the setting of Cherie Priest’s Clockwork Century novels, so I’ll read those instead of a game system. The Dresden Files Accelerated Edition is going into playtest soon, so I’ll probably read the novels instead of the Dresden Files RPG. Stuff like that.

It’s not a good answer, but it’s probably the best I’ve got right now.

Well Thomas, it’s been a year. Did you come up with a better answer?

Not really. For example, over the past few days, I’ve been redoing the basement. This involved tearing down all the modular shelving and moving them to the garage, which meant I had to move all the stuff off those shelves first. One of those shelves is dedicated to roleplaying games—the ones that I’ve kept, anyway. They’re on that shelf in the hopes that I’ll revisit them again, or in some cases, for the first time: Godlike, Blue Planet, Shadowrun, Dresden Files, Buffy, Pathfinder[1], Chill (Mayfair’s version. Chill, 3rd Edition is up in the office bookshelf.), and several adventures.

But have I actually gone through any of them in the past few months? You know, to read?

No.

Shadowrun, maybe? I guess I did reference some old SR2/3 things in the past few months, but I didn’t play SR2/3.

Hmmm…

I may have to revisit this next year.

Pathfinder: Not really. I can’t see myself wanting to go back to that system. But it’s there because of the three Adventure Paths as idea fodder for other fantasy games. [↩]